No More Benefit of the Doubt

"President Trump needs an intervention. Without that, we need his resignation. Republicans who are reflexively defending the self-inflicted wounds of this President have no need for him with Mike Pence in the wings...

... They should save their credibility, instead of behaving exactly like the Democrats they’ve pilloried for eight years.”

We are on a national trajectory toward seeing what happens when the immovable object of Donald Trump collides with the unstoppable force of the Democrat resistance. The outcome will be certain disaster for our constitutional republic. We are not in normal times, and the level of partisan rancor escalates each day.

People who once defended the indefensible during the Obama years are now outraged by the indefensible of the Trump years. The reverse is true too. The people who once impeached a man for lying now regularly defend a liar. The people who defended a President who regularly lied to the press to get an Iran deal done are now outraged by a President who regularly lies to the press.

These are unusual times, and it is pretty obvious where it is headed. Republicans are suddenly worried about special elections in Montana and Georgia. They think Karen Handel will win in Georgia, but they are not sure about Montana. In both races, recent polling has caused some heartburn, though Handel is still winning.

Democrats, however, are headed toward a takeover of the House of Representatives and, with it, never ending investigations of President Trump.

I think the Senate GOP will be able to hang on to control of the Senate, but it will be by the slimmest of margins. Every day though, a new self-inflicted wound from the President ushers forth. I hope the President and his advisors keep a level head and realize it would be far better for him to resign than risk impeachment.

If the vipers in Congress currently defending him believe their own jobs are in jeopardy because of him, they will see to it that he loses first. That is the reality of our age. But we should not kid ourselves. If President Trump were to resign, the future President Pence would face just as much outrage and resistance from the left.

The difference is the core competencies of the men.

President Trump is a novice politician. As I have written previously, because the American people chose an amateur politician to be President, we should all expect him to make the mistakes of a new politician. We should show him some measure of grace to screw up, though I realize few are.

Of course, being a novice politician who has already admitted the job is harder than he expected, we should expect the President to keep his mouth shut, listen to advisers, and learn. Twice now in a week, the President has undercut his own White House’s defense of presidential actions by getting on Twitter and directly contradicting his staff. The man shoots himself in the foot on a near daily basis and, in the process, scuttles his agenda. If he is not going to listen and concurrently is going to decide he is the only voice that matters, the only expert in the room, and the only person who can defend his record in a job he admits is harder than he thought, no one should give him the benefit of the doubt any longer.

Frankly, if there is not a course correction soon, the President needs to consider resigning. He beat Hillary Clinton. He spared the republic that disaster. But the status quo of the Trump administration is going to do more long-term harm than good. He is going to enable and create a resurgent, combative Democratic Party that will undermine everything he has done and usher in impeachment hearings. He risks not just a loss of the House, but a loss of Republican seats orders of magnitude greater than the Democrats lost under Barack Obama.

President Trump needs an intervention. Without that, we need his resignation. Republicans who are reflexing defending the self-inflicted wounds of this President have no need for him with Mike Pence in the wings. They should save their credibility, instead of behaving exactly like the Democrats they’ve pilloried for eight years. President Trump beat Hillary Clinton, he appointed Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, and now he risks everything else. There will be no wall. There will be no Obamacare repeal. There will probably not even be substantive tax reform.

None of that has anything to do with Democrat opposition and everything to do with his failure to lead.